No Need to Bother

But everyone’s expression was grim.

They had only just entered, yet even the lowest-ranked Void Beast was already this difficult to deal with.

“We can’t keep this up. We have to break through.”

Qin Wu was just about to charge forward under the cover of fire when a hand pressed down on his shoulder.

It was Chen Guan.

“What are you doing?”

Qin Wu froze.

Chen Guan didn’t look at him. His gaze remained fixed on the crystal jungle, which shimmered with a dangerous light.

“Something’s wrong,” he said softly.

“What’s wrong?”

An Changqing asked while maintaining the curtain of sword light.

The warning growl rumbling in Baobao’s throat grew increasingly urgent. Yet those golden, slit-pupiled eyes weren’t staring at the glowing crystals. They were fixed on the area behind the crystal jungle.

There was something there.

Something larger.

Something far more dangerous.

The Crystal Shooters were merely bait meant to draw their prey’s attention—or, more accurately, just one part of its body.

“Good instincts, kid,” Baal praised him. “That’s right. The big one’s hiding in the back. Once you’re exhausted from playing with these little turrets, it’ll come out and harvest you.”

“These things are alive, but there’s something wrong over there.” Chen Guan’s gaze passed over the Crystal Shooters and settled on the ordinary-looking gray fungal mat behind them. He pointed at it. “That area.”

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Another wave of spikes shot toward them, denser than before.

An Changqing’s curtain of sword light rippled in concentric circles, blocking most of the attacks.

“We need to find a way to get rid of them,” Long Ao said as he easily knocked away the remaining projectiles.

“Baobao.”

Chen Guan suddenly spoke in a low voice.

Baobao, which had been crouching beside his feet and growling, immediately raised its head. Its golden, slit-pupiled eyes turned toward him.

“Attack that patch of ground.”

The instant Chen Guan finished speaking, Baobao’s body transformed into a purple blur and vanished from the spot.

The next moment, a sharp sound split the air. A streak of purple lightning appeared over the patch of fungal mat Chen Guan had indicated.

The moment Baobao’s attack touched the ground, it vanished without a trace.

The gray-white fungal mat, however, came alive.

Like a boulder thrown into a body of water, it sent out visible waves.

Then the entire floating island began to tremble.

The fungal mat beneath their feet churned violently. The flat ground where they had been standing suddenly bulged upward.

The beautiful Crystal Shooters were torn from the ground, revealing that they were not independent creatures at all.

Their roots were all connected to a gigantic, constantly writhing mass of flesh.

A massive mouth.

That wasn’t a metaphor.

The ground beneath the area where everyone had been standing split open in a colossal crack nearly a hundred meters long.

Both sides of the fissure rose upward, revealing countless ghastly white teeth inside, densely packed like steel spikes.

The place they had been standing was the mouth of some enormous creature—and it was closing.

The spot Baobao had attacked was the creature’s upper palate.

“This is its true form: a Groundjaw Beast, a mimetic predator.”

Only then did Sima Ming speak, adding an explanation. “An adult Groundjaw Beast can reach the ninth rank and is extremely dangerous. However, this one hasn’t matured yet. Adult specimens are all captured by the Great Wall.”

With his strength, he had naturally seen through its true species from the very beginning.

Sima Ming hadn’t said anything at first because he wanted to see whether any of the students could notice something amiss before he did.

As expected, his prized student had already seen through it.

Chen Guan stared at the slowly closing maw. Deep within it, a core radiating a faint purple light pulsed like a beating heart.

Now that was the real treasure.

“Hurry! Run!”

The voice of a first-year student who had never seen anything so terrifying trembled with tears. He stared at the enormous upper jaw closing overhead as the patch of sky was rapidly swallowed by darkness.

The fungal mat beneath their feet had become slick and wet. It was the beast’s tongue. Countless translucent strands of mucus-covered flesh reached up from below and coiled toward their ankles.

A flash of sword light swept from An Changqing’s hand, severing every strand of flesh that lunged toward them.

With a thunderous shout, Long Ao bent his legs and planted himself firmly on the writhing fleshy tongue like a nail driven into the ground. He clenched both fists, the joints cracking sharply.

He stared at the ghastly white teeth hanging down like mountain peaks, his fighting spirit soaring.

“Break its teeth, and we’ll get out!”

Boom!

Long Ao drove his fist into the base of one of the inverted teeth, producing a muffled explosion that made everyone’s eardrums ache.

The tooth, which was taller than Long Ao himself, merely trembled. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across its surface, and a few pieces of stone broke loose.

It was still nowhere near being shattered.

“Pretty tough,” Long Ao muttered, shaking his numb fist. The muscles in his arm bulged like tangled tree roots.

On the other side, An Changqing’s sword light wove together into a river of stars, shredding the strands of mucus-covered flesh that stabbed up from the tongue and shielding several first-year students whose legs had already gone weak.

They were, after all, only first-years. They had never faced anything this terrifying. Only Shan Heng remained relatively calm.

Shan Heng glanced upward. There was only one final slit of daylight remaining, and darkness had already swallowed the surroundings. The stench in the air mingled with despair, tightening his expression as well.

If this continued, they would either be crushed to pieces or digested alive.

“Heh heh, kid, aren’t you going to make a move?” Baal’s voice echoed in Chen Guan’s mind. “Wait any longer, and your classmates really will become its dinner.”

Chen Guan ignored Baal.

His gaze passed over Long Ao, whose fists generated waves of pressure, and An Changqing, who was protecting everyone with his sword light. It locked firmly onto the depths of the enormous maw.

There, in the darkness of the throat, a massive purple core throbbed like a heart. With every beat, the churning of the entire mouth became more violent.

That was the Groundjaw Beast’s true weak point.

Breaking its teeth was nothing but a waste of effort.

“There’s no need to trouble yourselves.”

Chen Guan took two steps into the depths of the writhing tongue. The slick sensation beneath his feet was nauseating.

He stopped and extended one hand. A scythe appeared in his grasp.

“Stand firm,” Chen Guan said.

Before his words had even faded, a flash of purple light erupted, and his figure vanished from where he stood.

When he appeared again, he had crossed nearly a hundred meters and was standing directly before the enormous purple core.

“Roar!”

The Groundjaw Beast had clearly sensed the lethal threat. Every strand of mucus-covered flesh inside its mouth surged madly toward Chen Guan.

Chen Guan raised his scythe.

A thin black line flashed through the air.

Slice.

Time itself seemed to freeze.

Every strand of flesh rushing toward him stopped in midair.

A matching black line had appeared across the center of the violently pulsing purple core.

The next second—

Splurt!

Every strand of flesh touched by the black line cleanly separated into two pieces. They lost all vitality and fell as drops of slime.

The enormous core, meanwhile, split neatly in two like a watermelon cut by the world’s fastest blade, purple fluid spraying everywhere.